THE ROSE BED - Sea to Sky Meeting Management Inc.

somewhat difficult for her now that “they took my
driver’s licence away” two years ago! She used
to drive herself everywhere in her Buick, the
only car her husband thought was safe enough
for her to drive. She also walks with the aid
of a walker. So, coming to the Convention or
Festival may depend on how she feels in June,
and on whether or not someone can provide
her with a ride.
As I got ready to leave at the end of our
visit, Queenie, (whose real given name is
“Parthenah,” after her paternal grandmother),
gave me a cheque to contribute to the VRS
Convention expenses. While she may not have
ever won the “Best Rose in Show” trophy, I think
you would have to agree with me that Queenie
Morton has certainly won the “Best in Class”
award for her dedicated, life-long support of the
Vancouver Rose Society. We are honoured to
have you as a Lifetime Member, Queenie.
ROYAL CITY ROSE
A hardy rose for a most
special occasion
By Brad Jalbert
Reprinted from www.gardenwiseonline.ca
During the summer of 1998, I went about
making my usual rose crosses and
wanted to mate two of my top favourite
floribundas together.
'Pretty Lady', a floribunda from England, was
known to be an outstanding garden rose, with
foliage highly resistant to black spot and other
fungal diseases. She was extremely winter
hardy, free flowering and produced an
abundance of vigorous shoots, all driven by one
of the strongest root systems I had ever seen
on an “own-root” rose. Her colour was a pretty
soft pink but lacked the impact that people often
want in a landscape shrub.
Enter 'Living Easy', a rose I consider to be the
finest floribunda ever introduced and easily the
best overall garden rose I have ever grown.
'Living Easy' has outstanding foliage, flower
power and resistance to disease, and again
produces a massive “own-root” system capable
of supporting all this growth. Living Easy has
large double flowers in brilliant shades of
apricot, peach and salmon with hints of yellow
The over-all effect is simply stunning.
'Pretty Lady' proved to be a rather reluctant
mother with only a handful of seeds germinating
from the dozens of flowers pollinated. As they
say, it “only takes one”—and what a beautiful
baby she was!
From its birth date, 'Jalapri' grew with amazing
vigour and remained free of any rose diseases
in my maternity ward greenhouse. Back then, I
was still spaying my seedlings so I truly didn’t
realize just how resistant or how good this baby
was going to be.
Her initial flowers were pretty, a nice solid
clean apricot with amazing petal substance
and pretty hybrid tea-style pointed buds. I had
many seedlings to select from that spring and
she was just one of dozens of pretty babies!
8 June 2009
The Rose Bed